Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

REGULATION SCHOOL THEORY
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Braverman’s (1974) once popular contention that capitalist advance results in
the progressive deskilling of labour (cf. Penn, 1990), a host of thinkers now
announce flexible specialisation as the coming of an age which may upskill
employees. In the UK these thinkers range from economist John Atkinson (1984),
whose early studies of the ‘flexible firm’ struck a chord with political and business
leaders who pressured for a flexible workforce as a response to competitive
threats and recession (Atkinson and Meager, 1986), to Paul Hirst and Jonathan
Zeitlin (1991) emerging from a Marxian tradition to contend that flexible specialisation
may be formed anywhere where there are available favourable patterns
of ‘co-operation and co-ordination’ which supply the necessary ‘irreducible
minimum of trust’ between workforce and employers (p. 447) to make it happen.
Across the Atlantic there is a correspondingly wide range of exponents, from
radical critics like Fred Block (1990) who see ‘postindustrial possibilities’ bringing
‘higher skill levels’ (p. 103), to Soshana Zuboff (1988) of the Harvard Business
School who discerns the prospect of ‘a profound reskilling’ (p. 57) in recent
developments.
The second point is that information is regarded as having a critical role to
play in flexible specialisation, in several ways. One is that, concentrating on
production work as many of these writers do, ICTs are arguably the major facilitator
and expression of flexibility. The new technologies are ‘intelligent’, their
distinguishing feature being that they incorporate considerable quantities and
complexities of information. As such the programmes that guide them are their
fundamental constituents rather than any specific function they may perform. It
is these information inputs that determine their degrees of flexibility, enabling,
for example, cost-effective small-batch production runs, customisation of products
and rapid changes in manufacturing procedures. Furthermore, it is this
information element that provides flexibility in the labour process itself, since to
perform the operatives must, of course, be multi-skilled and adaptable, hence
more flexible (which in itself promotes the role of information). Where once upon
a time employees learned a set of tasks ‘for life’, in the age of information technology
they must be ready to update their skills as quickly as new technologies
are introduced (or even reprogrammed). Such ‘skill breadth’ (Block, 1990, p. 96)
means employees have to be trained and retrained as a matter of routine, a
pre-eminently informational task.
Another way in which information is crucial also stems from this increased
reliance on programmable technologies. The very fact that the machinery of
production is so sophisticated requires that workers possess information/knowledge
of the system as a whole in order to cope with the inevitable hiccups that
come with its operation. Thus not only does information technology stimulate
regular retraining, but it also demands that the employees become knowledgeable
about the inner workings. In this way production workers become in effect
information employees. In the terminology of Larry Hirschhorn (1984), these are
‘postindustrial workers’ who ‘must be able to survey and understand the entire
production process so that they are ready to respond to the unpredictable
mishap’ (p. 2). Information technologies on the shop floor are a ‘postindustrial
technology’ (p. 15) which takes away many of the physical demands and tedium
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